This application claims the priority of German Patent Document 199 29 330.9, filed Jun. 26, 1999, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The invention relates to a vehicle communication system.
In modern motor vehicles, in particular cars, it is generally desired to sense and process electronically an increasing number of operator control actions of the user for which previously a large number of different, mechanically activated operator control elements were used, and this electronic sensing and processing is specifically carried out using graphic user interfaces with which the user can actuate all, or at least some of the control units built into the vehicle by means of menu prompting on a screen. The term xe2x80x9cgraphic user interfacexe2x80x9d is to be understood here, as is usual, as being not only the mere pictorial representation of screen pages, but it also comprises the corresponding means, implemented using hardware and software, for bringing about all the actions which are associated with it, such as the assignment of functionalities to the individual elements displayed with a screen page and the control of the sequence of the respective functionality when calling/selecting them, i.e. the graphic user interface forms a central component of the interface, composed of hardware and software components, between the system and the user. Such a system configuration is made possible, inter alia, by the increasing networking of the control units by means of a data bus, which can, if appropriate, be composed of a plurality of different types of bus parts which are connected to one another and which are customarily in use in vehicles under the abbreviations CAN and MOST, for example. A convenient possible form of user interaction with the electronic vehicle system is also desirable because of the increasing implementation of telematics applications. Depending on the type and number of the different applications which are implemented in a vehicle, one or more display/operator control units are connected to the vehicle data bus as user interfaces of the vehicle system which are controlled by preferably one common computing unit. In addition, the computing unit can communicate via a corresponding communications unit with controller units, or control units for short, of the vehicle, in particular as a superordinate controller. Recently developed system configurations are described, for example, in the German laid-open publication DE 196 25 002 A1 and the periodical article K. J. Neumann et al., Ein aufkommender Standard fuar verteilte Systeme im Kfz, atp 4/98, p. 22.
In conventional modern vehicle communication systems of this type, a graphic user interface which is based on a bitmap representation is often used, which has the advantage of requiring relatively little computing capacity and in which the various interaction elements which are displayed, such as windows and buttons, are permanently stored for the running time of the system at a respectively fixed location. However, when changes occur, this makes it necessary in each case to change the entire bitmap page which is rigidly stored as one unit. Such a user interface is used, for example, in communications management systems (for example PCM) which are marketed by the co-applicant Siemens AG and are installed in series-produced vehicles.
WO 99/06987 A2 describes a management system for a vehicle communication system which permits all the system components of a vehicle to be controlled. The control management is implemented on a display/operator control unit via a graphic user interface. A function which can be used by the graphic user interface permits the user to view information in the form of HTML pages. A central computing unit controls the display/operator control unit and the other system components via a data bus.
German Patent DE 197 25 915 A1 describes a computer-supported diagnostics device for electronically controlled subsystems which are arranged within an overall system, in particular in a vehicle, and which have means for generating WEB pages, for example in HTML or SGML format, which are implemented in the respective subsystems or in a central server. The WEB pages contain the specific data of the overall system and the diagnostics-relevant data of the subsystems. Furthermore, a diagnostics interface is provided for interaction between the subsystems and electronic equipment which is present outside the overall system.
WO 98/51991 A1 describes a vehicle-external diagnostics system which makes available information in formats which are customary for the Internet.
German Patent DE 197 39 357 A1 discloses a vehicle communication system with a data bus in which a terminal module which functions as a data input and data output unit is provided. The module forms a bus node and includes one or more operator control elements for controlling a plurality of functional models which are present in the motor vehicle. Also formed are bus nodes, a screen, a storage unit in which graphic elements which are to be displayed on the screen are stored in a form which can be called, and a processor unit for representing the graphic user interface on the screen, for evaluating the operator control units and for communication with the functional modules. The communication between the terminal module and the functional modules preferably takes place using a protocol-type interface by means of a page description language which can be compared with the HTML standard, and the function modules are to be correspondingly configured with respect thereto.
For this reason, the invention is based on the technical problem of providing a vehicle communication system of the above-mentioned type which makes it possible, with a degree of computing complexity which is acceptable for vehicle applications, to operate the system as conveniently as possible by means of the one or more display/operator control units using a graphic user interface.
The invention overcomes this problem by providing a vehicle communication system which includes a graphic user interface which is based on the HTML/XML page format (HTML: Hyper-Text Markup Language, XML: Extensible Markup Language), standardized formulation which is used for example in the Internet world and which is implemented in the at least one display/operator control unit or in the computing unit which controls it or is implemented distributed between the two units. The use of such a graphic user interface with HTML/XML page format permits changes, for example, of partial contents of a screen page to be made very much more easily than on graphic user interfaces which are based on a bitmap representation because the pages in HTML/XML format are not rigidly stored as an entire unit for the running time of the system, but instead only their components are stored. In addition, it is possible, by using the HTML/XML format, to make the sequence of successive pages variable under program control during the execution of an application, as a function of specifiable conditions. On the other hand, the present system has the advantage that, in contrast to, for example, Windows-based user systems, it does not need a standardized operating system and therefore entails correspondingly less computational complexity.
In one development of the system, a browser, i.e. interpreter, for the HTML/XML pages is implemented in the display/operator control unit and also an MMI (Man-Machine Interface) applications unit is provided for generating corresponding MMI pages in the HTML/XML format, which unit can be located in the computing unit or the display/operator control unit or be implemented distributed between the two units. The browser supports, for example, HTML files, XML files, image files and text files in the display/operator control unit.
In one development of the system, an ActiveX module, which includes display elements and interaction components, is implemented in the display/ operator control unit and/or the computing unit. This measure is specifically expedient when the HTML format is used, while XML is so powerful that ActiveX modules can be dispensed with. The integration of ActiveX interaction components into HTML pages which is made possible by using this standardized module permits both local software components and components which are located in other equipment units which are connected to the bus to be used and/or called. It is expedient here to keep important ActiveX display elements and/or ActiveX interaction components in a library which is implemented in the display/operator control unit so that a comparatively rapid reaction to user inputs is possible and it is relatively easy to make software supplements and updates as well as integrate new functions in the controlling computing unit. Furthermore, an MMI interaction control module, via which the ActiveX interaction components can be actuated by means of a central control part of the computing unit, is provided in one embodiment of the system. In a further embodiment of the invention the central control part of the computing unit is also used to actuate one or more controller units which are connected to the data bus via associated communications units.